


the road so far

by secretfeanorian



Series: made of starlight [5]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings Online
Genre: Gen, not the Mairon you're probably thinking of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4307820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretfeanorian/pseuds/secretfeanorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rawlind is growing stir crazy and the blooming romance between Nona and Horn is not helping her mood in the slightest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the road so far

**Author's Note:**

> here's the promised explanation (ish) of Mai-nallama lol:  
> Mai-nallama is based off of the spirit saber cat skill lms can barter for, and the broken tooth is on it. All explanation of the spirit companions you might find in this is entirely headcanon as there isn't really an in-game explanation for why/how lore-masters can basically summon the spirits of the dead.

_We are the last people standing at the end of the night. We are the greatest pretenders in the cold morning light.  
_

* * *

_“You’re ours now. Let’s see how long you last. You are Fâsh’s problem now. He will find work for you-”_   
  
“Rawlind?” The lore-master flinches at the sound of Corudan calling her name. The elf comes up and stands next to where she has been sitting for the past few hours, staring blankly into the fire.  
  
Rawlind shakes her head and tries to push away her thoughts of Isengard for the time being. “I’m alright Corudan. Just tired.” The Lothlórien elf raises an eyebrow in disbelief, but doesn’t seem eager to argue with her while there are others within hearing range.  
  
As if in an attempt to get Corudan’s eyes off her, Rawlind stands and wanders over to where Gleowine is standing, muttering a soft greeting to him as she does. His map lies on the table next to him, temporarily abandoned as its owner rests his eyes.

Rawlind’s eyes drift over it and stop to rest on Isengard. Unnoticed by the others around her, she bites her lip. For a moment, guilt threatens to choke her as she feels tears welling up in her eyes. Abruptly, she turns away from the map and swipes at her eyes angrily as Nona approaches.  
  
“Are you alright, Rawlind?” The concerned voice of her friend grates on Rawlind’s nerves perhaps more than it should.  
  
“Fine.” She snaps and swiftly regrets it. Nona withdraws for a brief moment, then her eyes flash with something that is probably sympathy. Sympathy or not, she nods curtly to Rawlind, then moves past her without saying anything more to speak to Corudan.  
  
Rawlind sighs deeply and looks over at the mouth of the cave. Snow is still whirling outside, blocking her sight and she resists the urge to sigh again. The ghostly shape of a saber cat pads up beside her and makes the odd humming noise that Rawlind has come to expect from the echo of Mai. She takes a deep breath and then lets it out softly.  
  
Rawlind turns back toward the second fire as Nona leaves it and she keeps her eyes downward, suddenly not wanting to meet her eyes. She doesn’t know if Nona had done the same, but the Algraig woman returns to the first campfire without saying anything, so the lore-master assumes this is the case. She sits down in front of the fire again, but this time is swiftly drawn into the conversation two of the Byre Tor survivors are having. Despite them meaning well, Rawlind can feel her irritation mounting and she excuses herself only a few minutes after sitting down.  
  
Gleowine looks over at her and opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Rawlind cuts him off by saying “I’m just getting edgy; I don’t like staying in one place like this for extended periods of time.”  
  
“Extended periods of time being?” Horn has now wandered over and Rawlind sighs.  
  
“Depends,” She mutters, not in the mood for conversation, but Horn isn’t dissuaded.  
  
“On what?  
  
“None of your business!” Rawlind almost snaps, but catches herself and mumbles, “On the circumstances of the staying in one place” instead. She wants the conversation to be over and Horn can evidently sense this because he doesn’t continue his line of questioning and turns to briefly converse with Gleowine before leaving again.  
  
Watching him, Rawlind sighs, sits, then draws a dagger out a hidden sheath in her boot, and flips it several times before growing bored. Instead of returning it to its sheath, however, she stares at the blade silently, brooding. The blade had been Candaith’s once, in what seemed like an age ago, but had in truth only been a handful of months; a year or so at most. He’d tossed it to her when they were fighting atop Amon Sûl after she had been disarmed and after the skirmish was over, when she’d tried to return it to him, he had instead laughed and insisted she keep it.  
  
And she had. By some stroke of luck, she hadn’t had it on her the day she’d gone into the prison caves only for the Falcons to turn on the Grey Company and so she hadn’t been forced to leave it behind when she’d fled Isengard. When the Rohirrim scouts led by Prince Théodred had assaulted Tâl Methedras, she had been able to reclaim it along with the rest of her belongings that the Falcons had claimed as their own.  
  
Mai and her horse Moondancer had not been so lucky as to escape. As for Candaith himself…  
  
Rawlind abruptly shakes her head and slides the dagger back into its place with a little more force than necessary. If anything, she’s almost surprised at how long it had taken her thoughts to turn to the previous owner of Carca.  
  
Mai-nalláma pads up to once again hover beside her as she glances at the cave mouth, humming softly. She smiles slightly and reaches over to pet him, before remembering where she is and what has happened. She jerks her hand back to her side and bites the inside of her cheek. Half-instinctively, her hand goes to the pouch around her waist, but, remembering that she isn’t quite sure where her pipe is, she drops her hand and just stares forward for several minutes, not really thinking.  
  
When Rawlind finally does start thinking, she wishes she hadn’t as her mind calls forth images of what Lothrandir could at this very moment be enduring in the dungeons of Isengard. She remembers his defiant look as he’d been pulled from her and tries to hold out hope that he might still follow no will but his own, but in the cold and silent gloom of the cave, she finds it increasingly hard to picture. She shakes her head. Lothrandir could hold on, he had to, he just had….She swallows.  
  
The spirit beside her lets out a concerned hum. Rawlind tries to smile, but finds she doesn’t quite have the heart to. Mai-nalláma doesn’t hum again, but he tilts his head and watches her, curious or worried she can’t quite tell. She turns to watch him in turn and registers for surprisingly the first time the fact that his right saber is broken halfway down. Some long curbed anger stirs within her at the sight, but before it can boil for too long, one of the women from Byre Tor – Elfgifu, she recalls – approaches her, holding a small satchel.  
  
Rawlind stands and turns to face her and Elfgifu hands her the satchel. Without having to open it, the lore-master knows what is in it, having felt the shape of a pipe through the leather. “I heard you muttering earlier about not knowing where your pipe was; and I thought this might be yours.”  
  
Rawlind looks down at it. A small smile creeps onto her face and her shoulders loosen just a little bit. “It is, thank you.” She says. Elfgifu returns to her seat by the fire and Rawlind doesn’t follow, opting to remain facing into the cold night, but her heart feels a little warmer despite that.

**Author's Note:**

> On the dagger Carca: no such weapon exists in-game. I just made it up for story purposes. Carca means "fang" in Quenya.
> 
> ALSO: I kind of spaced while writing this, and one gets the impression that there are no horses in the cave, when there are in fact, horses in the cave. Oops.


End file.
